Saint of the Week

Margherita Lotti (Rita) was born in a small town near Cascia, Italy, to parents who were advanced in age. After years of childlessness, Rita’s parents saw the birth of their only child as an answer to prayer. At a young age, Rita’s faith was so strong that her parents set up a small oratory in their home in which she could pray. As a young girl, Rita begged her parents to permit her to enter a convent. Instead, according to the common practice of that time, her parents gave her away in marriage at the tender age of 12.

Saint Rita is known as the patron saint of impossible causes, in part, because of the difficult marriage she endured with such love. Her husband was said to have been an angry and cruel man, who was mentally, emotionally, and even physically violent toward her. During their eighteen years of marriage, it is said that her prayers, coupled with the witness of her many virtues, softened his heart and he turned to Christ, at least enough to attain the hope of Heaven. Rita gave birth to two sons, perhaps twins, and raised them within the Catholic faith as a devout mother.

Widowed and childless, Rita turned to her childhood desire of entering the convent. She was refused admission because she was previously married and due to the scandal of her husband’s violent death. In response, Rita sought to bring about a reconciliation between her family and the Chiqui family once and for all. She prayed through the intercession of her patrons, Saints John the Baptist, Augustine, and Nicholas of Tolentino. She also sought the prayers of Saint Mary Magdalene, the patroness of the convent she wanted to enter. Rita’s prayers were answered, reconciliation took place, and God opened the door for her to enter the convent of Saint Mary Magdalene in Cascia to live the Augustinian rule of life. One pious legend states that while she prayed and levitated, her three patron saints brought her inside the locked doors of the convent. When the sisters saw this, they concluded that it must be God’s will that she enter.

At the age of sixty, while deep in prayer before a crucifix, Sister Rita received the miraculous gift of the stigmata in the form of a wound on her head, inflicted by one of the thorns that pierced Jesus’ brow. This is believed to have taken place shortly after Rita heard a sermon on the Crown of Thorns by Saint James della Marca, a Franciscan friar who was known for his powerful preaching and devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. Sister Rita’s wound was so painful and unsightly that she is said to have remained in seclusion in her convent, even from her fellow sisters, for the last decade of her life. The one exception was a pilgrimage to Rome taken by all the sisters. Just prior to that trip, her wound healed, but it reappeared upon her return to the convent.

Since Rita’s death from tuberculosis at the age of seventy, many miracles have been attributed to her intercession. When her body was exhumed, it was found to be incorrupt and is on display in a glass reliquary at the Basilica of Saint Rita in Cascia. It is said that at times her body levitates and that sweet odors permeate the air.